Lanzarote Convention

The estimate figure ONE in FIVE emerges from the
combination of the results from the various studies undertaken by research teams in many
European countries, statistics advanced by
Unicef, the International Labour Organisation
and the World Health Organisation.

It is a regional figure at European level and doesn’t
exclude that prevalence in individual countries may be
bigger or smaller. Research in countries outside Europe,
like in the United States and Canada, seems to reveal
the similar level of prevalence.

Today, one of the difficulties is to have a clear
picture of the actual situation as:

• sexual violence remains widely underreported
• the studies differ in scope, use different
methodologies and definitions
• interviewing children raises ethical issues
• the professionals working with and for children (e.g.
in institutions) lack procedural guidelines and tools to
report sexual violence against children
• there is a lack of effective tools and means to be
informed by children who are challenged by difficulties
in expressing themselves such as very young children,
children with mental disabilities, severely traumatised
children etc.
• many studies are based on interviews with adults or
young adults about their childhood experience of abuse
• not enough effort is put in trying to obtain
comprehensive, disaggregated and comparable data.

The figure ONE in FIVE refers to all forms of sexual
violence against children: sexual abuse,
pedopornography, solicitation of children through
Internet, child prostitution and corruption of children.

As most research available refers only to sexual abuse
involving physical contact, the figure ONE in FIVE may
actually be underestimating the increasing problems of
solicitation and exposure of children to pornographic
material through Internet.